The handsome blue-eyed stranger raises his hand. “That would be me.”
“That would be you?” I say, my voice trailing off so that the last word is barely audible.
“Yep.” He nods, then gestures around us. “I’m a gaffer. Responsible for many things, wires among them.”
“Cool,” I say. “Okay, well, I’m gonna go shut myself in Tommy’s trailer and never return. Bye.”
Before I can turn and flee, the handsome blue-eyed stranger with slightly curly hair reaches out to grab my arm. “Hey,” he says, that throaty laugh appearing again. “It’s okay. Really. I’m Carter Reid, by the way.”
I push my hair behind my ear, then hold out my hand. “Annie Cassidy. Tommy’s assistant.”
He nods. “Yeah, I’ve . . . seen you around.”
There’s something about the way he says those few words, like he’s been not only seeing me but liking what he’s seeing, that makes my whole body flash hot and cold. It’s nice to be seen by someone who likes what they’re seeing, unlike some people who make it all too clear that they see you but want to simply make fun of what they’re seeing and call you derogatory nicknames based on your job duties.
But there’s a very attractive man in front of me, so I don’t need to think about Drew Danforth right now.
Carter looks older than me—not by a lot, but maybe he’s in his mid-thirties. There’s just something about him that looks like he’s been around the metaphorical block, like he’s seen some stuff and lived to tell the tale. That makes him sound grizzled, which he emphatically is not, but I guess what I’m saying is that you know how some celebrities age really well? Like, how George Clooney looked so much better by the time he married Amal than he did when he was doing sitcom work in the ’80s? It’s kind of like that. This guy looks like he’ll age well, like a wine or a cheese or a Clooney.
“Okay. Well,” I say once I realize that I’ve been staring at his face for far too long. “Gotta get to Tommy’s trailer.”
“See you around, Annie,” Carter says with a wave. I watch him walk away for just a second, long enough to really notice that he’s wearing a thick and durable work jacket that looks, just a little, like something that Bill Pullman would wear in While You Were Sleeping.
* * *
• • •
I once read that Nora Ephron was obsessed with details. She knew her characters inside and out—how they dressed and spoke and decorated their homes.
And while I’m not saying Tommy is anything like Nora Ephron—for starters, I’m fairly certain she didn’t sloppily eat Italian subs almost every day for lunch—he does share her attention to detail. In some regards, anyway.
Tommy’s obsessed with some book, which he swears he needs in a scene, and his demand that I find it wipes my embarrassing wire-related incident with Carter Reid out of my mind. “It has a blue cover,” he says.
“And what’s the title?” I ask, getting out my phone so I can take notes.
“I don’t know,” Tommy says, rubbing his hands together as his breath puffs into the cold air. “I think I saw it on the Today show. Or maybe Good Morning America. But it had a blue cover.”
“Do you know who wrote it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “A man, I think. Or maybe it was a woman.”
Well. That certainly narrows it down.
“Oh!” he says, eyes wide. “There was a wolf on the cover.”
He smiles, like this should give me enough to go on.
“So,” I say slowly. “You want me to go find a book with a blue cover that has a wolf on it, that’s by a man or a woman and was featured on Today or Good Morning America.”
He nods and claps me on the back. “Thanks, Annie.”
And then he turns around, barking at some crewmember about something. I sigh and head toward the bookstore.
One of the most charming parts of living in Columbus in general, and German Village specifically, is our bookstore, the Book Loft. It has thirty-two book-filled rooms—some tiny, some large—that snake up and down like a maze. To get to the children’s section, you have to go up one set of stairs and then down another. I’ve often thought it would be a great setting for a murder mystery—you could hide a body in the Civil War room and be fairly certain no one would find it for hours.
The Book Loft is almost as comforting to me as Nick’s. The courtyard that leads to the door is charming and beautiful, even covered in slushy snow. And the light that glows from the front windows looks especially inviting on this dim, gloomy January day.
I walk into the main room and tell an employee what I’m looking for, not that I expect her to be much help. Even a seasoned bookseller would have a difficult time with the description Tommy gave me (seriously, “it has a wolf on it” isn’t giving her a lot to work with). Still, she promises to do her best while I set off to look for it myself. I climb the stairs into the new-release room and almost bump into a broad-shouldered man in a pea coat.
“’Scuse me,” I mumble, but he’s too engrossed in the hardcover he’s flipping through to notice me. I scoot around him—doesn’t he know these rooms are tiny and difficult to maneuver in?—and scan my eyes over the shelf of new releases.
Then I hear him say, “Coffee Girl?”
I turn and find myself face-to-face with Drew.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I say. “Are you following me?”
I’ll admit, at least part of my prickliness is because I’m a little embarrassed about how I may have been a little bit rude to him when he was just talking to my uncle. And I guess I’m the tiniest amount ashamed that I kind of went on a romantic comedy tirade in his general direction on the night of the Great Barry Debacle. Drew snaps his book shut and gives me his crooked smile, the one that spawned a billion Tumblr gifsets when he flashed it in Mike’s Restaurant. In person, it looks a lot more annoying . . . but okay, still cute. If it didn’t belong to the man who insisted on following me around, giving me a rude nickname and stomping all over my most cherished form of entertainment, maybe I would find it endearing.
“Actually, I was here first,” he says, placing the book back on the shelf. “Which means you’re the one who’s following me. I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier, but how’s Barry?”
We’re so close to each other in this crowded room that I can see the gold flecks in his eyes. “It, uh, didn’t work out,” I say, turning around to get back to my job. “We were too different. I like hot liquids; he likes half-eaten garbage bagels.”
Drew laughs out loud, the sound shockingly large in the small room. “I’ll fill in the blanks myself, I guess.”
I focus on the book covers in front of me. Purple, red, black . . . blue, but definitely no wolf. This is going to be impossible.
“Looking for something to read?” Drew asks, moving to stand beside me.
I turn my head to look up at him. He’s a few inches taller than me, so my eyes are basically at the level of his mouth. “A book for Tommy,” I say. “It has a blue cover and maybe there’s a wolf on it and it was on TV.”